Using Data for Peer Benchmarking & Best Practices: FREE Webinar

Date:  May 26, 10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EDT

Program:  Using Data for Peer Benchmarking and Best Practices
With: Robert Dugan, Dean of Libraries, University of West Florida

While trend analysis is used by most libraries to compare inputs and outputs internally, accrediting organizations may ask institutions for peer benchmarking information as part of a program’s or institutional self-study.  Additionally, libraries may want to identify other libraries that are successfully conducting a service they want to offer or improve, oftentimes referred to as a best practices study. An example would be providing longer public service hours with existing staff.  Dugan will demonstrate the use of ACRLMetrics for benchmarking and best practices studies.

Register at: https://scrlc.org/events/view/5597 

Communicating the Library’s Value: FREE Webinar

Date: May 15, 2015, 10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EDT
Program: Communicating the Library’s Value
With: Zsuzsa Koltay, Director of Assessment and Communication, Cornell University

Unquestioned support for the academic library can’t be taken for granted any more. Our parent institutions challenge us for evidence about what we contribute to institutional outcomes. What does this evidence look like? Is it one irrefutable piece of data, or more of a composite picture? And how do we communicate it most effectively to users, opinion-leaders, and decision-makers? This session will present a framework with practical examples of hits and misses based on the work of the presenter’s unit, Assessment and Communication, at Cornell University Library.

Outcomes:
Participants will be able to understand the:
• Nature of value and impact evidence in the context of academic libraries
• Interconnectedness of assessment and communication efforts in this context
• Data components that triangulate value and impact
• Relevant communication channels and presentation approaches
• Importance of understanding and adapting to local environments

Register at: https://scrlc.org/events/view/5593

FREE ALA Webinar to showcase the new Intellectual Freedom Manual!

The new ninth edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual, published by ALA Editions, is fresh off the press. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) will present a talk show style webinar, I.F. Live, featuring the manual’s editors and contributors who will introduce the revised manual and its new and useful features for practicing librarians at 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 12, 2015.

Attendees will receive a code to purchase the manual at a discounted price and one lucky person will win a free copy of the 9th edition Intellectual Freedom Manual courtesy of ALA Editions.

Have you ever wondered. . .

  • About the best way to respond when someone expresses concern about something in your collection or asks that it be removed?
  • If you’d know what to do if the police asked for library user information?
  • Whether or not you must allow anyone to use your meeting rooms?
  • How to write library policies to protect intellectual freedom?
  • If children have First Amendments rights in the school library?
  • How to handle controversy and negative publicity, and where you can get help?

This webinar will explain the manual’s reorganized structure and the inclusion of specific tools to help librarians, directors, teachers, principals, trustees or students concerned with censorship and issues of access, privacy, and the First Amendment. The panel of experts answering questions will include Trina Magi, Martin Garnar, Sarah Houghton, Helen Adams, Deborah Caldwell Stone and Nanette Perez. For more details and to register, visit http://www.ala.org/advocacy/if-live

The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the Association’s basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. The goal of the office is to educate librarians and the general public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom in libraries. For more information, visit www.ala.org/oif.